Saturday, July 16, 2005

Mmm, chinese food

Update

Ok, it's official. I get to use this blog for whatever I feel like at the moment. I'm not so good at that over-arching-purpose thing.

Just realized that I'm a bit behind in the actual life-updates for anyone interested. I finally made the transition to another car--yes, I gave in and sold my beloved Toyota Paseo ... /sniff,sniff/ I love that car. In 40 years (heck, maybe fewer) I'm so going to be one of those people at a car show going, "this is just like my first real car, gosh, I loved that car" and then I'll be throwing money at some similar model/money pit. I wanted to find a way to keep it in some barn someplace and learn how to become its personal mechanic, but... cooler heads prevailed, I guess. /Sigh/ I guess.

There were going to be many descriptive, funny, tearful, strange and amazing blog entries about the 5-month-long high drama involved in the car transition--consider yourself spared.

Anyways, I bought a 99 Beetle--it's royal blue ("blue lagoon," officially) without anything too special. It has nice wheels, some creature comforts and--the most important thing--low miles. Bought it from a private party. It doesn't get the 40 mpg I'm used to, but I'm still putting the miles on. I'm learning to like it, though I'm still trying to figure out how to make it distinctly "mine."

Zac and I are in the process of moving to Rocklin--which is on the east edge of the sacred-tomato metropolitan area, closer to my work. It'll keep us still close to the city, but is literally just down the street from open space--yay! It also means we're trading commutes--mine will be shorter, Zac's will be rather serious...we'll see how that goes... It's also our first time to have a washer/dryer in-house, very exciting. I'm convinced that I will miraculously become a cleaner, neater person with the possibility of laundry with such ease, but don't hold your breath. The picture, left, is not the prettiest of the complex we're planning on moving into (technically, we haven't signed the lease yet...), but it's a pretty accurate one.

Oh, and when are we getting married? That seems to be the question everyone asks. And while it seems like it would make sense to ask--trust us, we'll let you know. It's still definitely in the plans (er, I mean that figuratively, as there still are no actual, specific when-where plans) but we're both kinda committed to putting it off a bit longer. Ah, procrastination--my favorite sport.

I think I have become one of those semi-permanent engaged people whom I used to think we're so stupid... ummm... oh well, some things you can't help. And some things you can't rush.

And that's it--hope this didn't sound too much like a Christmas-card-update letter... I just wanted to catch up on some more-or-less major changes going on here that I kept meaning to belabor in this silly blog. Hopefully, I'll be talking with most of "you" (again, figurative) soon enough or often enough that this won't be your only way to get this news.

And if you want more details (some might call it the long-story version), you know I'm always happy to provide!

Monday, July 11, 2005

get fit, girly

And in that vein, here are some of the goals for this week: (after, of course, figuring out what to do with moving and where and signing up for a cell phone, and figuring out the car registration/insurance cra-pola)

Sunday, July 10, 2005

who am i kidding

So I've said before that this blog is really just for me--for fun, for links, for free. But now I mean it. Screw trying to write something intriguing or esoteric or political. The only people who read this are Zac and sometimes Tim, and no offense guys--I don't write for them. If I want to express my opinions about a particular current event, then I'll talk about it with people in real time and real space. Hmm, novel idea.

I'm tired of feeling like I've got to catch up with posts, or that I can't post on this topic until I write about that. And I'm tired of reading other people's blogs about how they need to blog, or they have nothing to write about but are writing anyway. I'm so behind in my posts that I've still never written the posts that I have actually wanted to. I'm freeing myself from any weird quasi-obligation of maintaining some weak, semi-status-quo weblog.

My new idea: I'm going to make this blog useful for what I actually use it for--lunch-time surfing. So for now, this "blog" is going to be my extended web to-do-list. If anybody out there feels like reading up on my weird little weekly goals, have at it. Maybe someday I'll go back to posting life updates or personal commentary. I'll let "you" know.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Tripping on principal

The Judith Miller/Matthew Cooper trial is bizarre and a bit of a conundrum for me. Don't get me wrong, usually I am all about arguing on principal alone, but... there are too many intersecting principals here. And all of the usual partisan siding is almost inextricably tangled.

I mean, if the anonymous leak was by liberals out for revenge, the sides would be so clear-cut: Conservatives could profess outrage against the leftist politicians and their dirty media dogs, and liberals could make some controverted claim to why the truth in this instance mattered, why it needed to get out. But it's not that simple.

I would like to say that without the coloring-book borders, this issue makes people think and that's a good thing. But I don't really see that happening either. It's more like people already know which side they should be on, based upon their stance on media in general, and either blindly or weakly take that stance.

"The unpopularity of the press has made this kind of attack on these journalists easier," said Roy Peter Clark, of the Poynter Institute in this Baltimore Sun article. While I don't really want to support these reporters in this specific instance, it really bothers me that this is the case chosen as the exemplar. From the prosecutor's comments, it seems that this really is some snarky "let's hit the press when we can" attack.

I like what this guy has to say (very journalistic of me). There's no anchor on the page, but if you scroll down past #3 to his "Solution" you find that he believes the legal answer to journalistic confidentiality is to protect journalism, not journalists. Sounds pretty good to me, I guess. But then we have to figure out a good definition for journalism.

And how do we figure out when they're doing "good" journalism? Oh wait, that's the whole point, isn't it...